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The women, all singing, began to come close to Levin, and he felt

as though a storm were swooping down upon him with a thunder of

merriment. The storm swooped down, enveloped him and the haycock

on which he was lying, and the other haycocks, and the

wagon-loads, and the whole meadow and distant fields all seemed

to be shaking and singing to the measures of this wild merry song

with its shouts and whistles and clapping. Levin felt envious of

this health and mirthfulness; he longed to take part in the

expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and had

to lie and look on and listen. When the peasants, with their

singing, had vanished out of sight and hearing, a weary feeling

of despondency at his own isolation, his physical inactivity, his

alienation from this world, came over Levin.